Besides, after the Germans’ arrival it would be better not to have any contact with them. Consequently, our neighbours, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances step aside and suddenly stop visiting us, even though they have continuously sought contact with us since 1939, believing that friendship with a Jew was a good recommendation for a Pole in the Bolsheviks’ eyes. Luckily, that opportunism has not affected everybody, as a lot of labourers and educated people in Lvov did not change their attitude after the Bolsheviks’ departure. There is no point talking about the Ukrainians. Dumb and clumsy, unqualified and conceited, they are doing whatever they want everywhere. They truly hate only Poles. They would like to organise a massacre, a pogrom of the Poles immediately, tonight, but the instructions they received earlier from the Nazi Ukrainians clearly forbade any hostile actions against the Poles. Thus, their basic instincts and primitive emotions are being shifted onto the safe track – against the Jews, the Bolshevik lackeys. The Jews are waiting for the Germans, deluding themselves that (despite everything) they are not like the Ukrainians. Let them come already, because in the meantime, at night, the Ukrainians will certainly organise a pogrom. The Poles who had been actively engaged against the Ukrainians are quietly worrying about the same thing. They do not spend that night at home. As it turns out, we are all waiting for the Germans.
[22] 1 July. The Germans are already in Lvov ; we have been hearing this news for about twelve hours. Sporadic shots, sometimes very close, fired from machine guns, rifles, and light guns and sporadic explosions of grenades or unexploded bombs disturb the menacing, deathly, ominous silence. What the people have feared most has not yet happened. For now we have avoided the Ukrainians’ immediate “impulse” to conduct a pogrom. The Germans are still not here but they gave their orders a long time ago: no pogroms, no spontaneous “impulses”, no harm to the Poles. The first German motorcyclists arrive at six in the morning today. In an hour there is already a swastika on the city hall. After the next two hours there are already a few hundred Germans and a battalion of sichovyks – Ukrainian legionaries enlisted for the German Army. There is a general easing of the tension in the city. First of all, the Germans’ arrival was a pleasant surprise. Even though those were advance guards, only cars and motorcycles, everybody was struck by the stark contrast between the Germans’ and the Bolsheviks’ stance. The behaviour of the Bolsheviks in the city (I am referring to the army, where there were plenty
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